In most business concerns a decrease in sales points to poor business. And poor business means hard times. Elementary Watson! But there is one concern which should pride itself on being unique, and that is the Harvard Business School. A decrease in sales here may just as well prove that business is better.

This year the School of Business Administration will register 36 less first-year men than last year. And those who know the psychology of a graduate school body may take this as an indication that the New Deal is on its way and that a managed economics is not such a bad thing after all.

While other business were crying out in misery against the horrors of depression the Harvard Graduate Schools and especially the Business School were finding little to complain about. As fewer men found jobs an increasing number decided that their education was deficient and that while unemployed they might very well continue their studies. You could enjoy yourself, you could pick up a little more knowledge and you could satisfy your conscience which said you shouldn't be wasting time.

Of course in many instances the depression forced men to abandon thoughts of continuing in graduate schools but it seemed as if the Business School was the least affected by these delinquents. The fable of Big Business still held a magic power.

But how to explain the present decline? Have more college graduates found jobs? Is there loss money for ambitious students? Or has the charm of the Business School dwindled? We are inclined to believe the first answer with some consideration of the last.